New Mexico Grapples With Its Version of Confederate Tributes: A Celebration of Spanish Conquest

For as long as nearly anyone here can remember, Hispanic residents have donned the garb of conquistadors and European nobility once a year to celebrate the 1692 reconquest of New Mexico from Native Americans who submitted to the Spanish Empire after a grisly revolt.

But after escalating protests by Native Americans who saw the re-enactment as a racist attempt to gloss over atrocities carried out by Spanish colonizers, the annual tradition known as the Entrada officially came to an end on Friday, replaced by a multidenominational prayer gathering to begin the annual Fiesta de Santa Fe.

The move, aimed at forging reconciliation in the 411-year-old city, was an attempt to avoid the kind of turmoil that authorities elsewhere in the country are grappling with over Confederate monuments and other symbols of historic brutality, including statues honoring European conquerors.